No Need For Scrums

BLUF: Rules are there to be prescriptive if your team needs to be told explicit instructions.

I have a team that has no problem conversing about issues, problems, or just to BS about something that is going in life or work. Not one of my team members has ever had an issue coming to me to talk. That isn’t me looking at the world with rose colored glasses. They have come to talk to me about career growth, anger with other team members, benefits, and just life in general. I am 91.1111% sure that they would come talk to me about anything if they needed answers or discussions.

I have never been a fan of the agile process, but I am in a spot where if you don’t do it, then people think you are weird. So do we need scrums? No. If your team does not have a communication problem or deficiency, then there is no reason to have a scrum everyday. If you maintain your tickets, then you keep the scrum master happy, if you complete your sprint tasks, then everyone is happy, and if no one has questions or misunderstanding, then what do you need to communicate everyday?

Our scrums are not long, 2-3 minutes on average for a team of 4 developers. I hold to it that scrum is not for discussion. We do have conversation bleed over into more discussion in case there are problems or issues. The rule that is place to have a scrum everyday seems to be there just because. A rule exists because someone needs to be explicitly told how to perform actions:

Holding hands when crossing the street.

No toys at the dinner table.

Do not run in the house.

These are some of the rules that my wife and I have for our kids, but these rules will diverge, change or be removed completely over time because they will not make sense or are no longer necessary.

Your team should be treated the same way as well. If they understand what they are suppose to be doing and the rule becomes a hindrance more than a business process, then take it away. Keep rules around indefinitely if they promote a good business process, such as, two developers need to review a pull request to ensure that code is correct, it implements the right solution and unit tests are written.